Go right in and chew him a new head: a case of Mantis religiosa

This
41 year old woman began her consultation by saying: “My energy is not as good
as I’d like it to be. I’m taking iron
and prenatal vitamins now. Actually, the
last time I felt really good was when I was pregnant. I can make it through my day, but I’d like to
feel I have more vitality. I don’t have enough ‘oomph’ to exercise. I’m feeling
uncreative and I used to feel more creative. I’m feeling uninspired by my job – feeling un-creative, uninspired,
really AVERAGE, and I don’t like
feeling average, I like feeling on top of my game.”

This
is a woman who was accustomed to finding success for her efforts. She’d been a competitive middle distance
runner, a double degree university graduate, and a highly proficient media
relations representative for a large government public service
organization. Her qualities of
“stick-to-it-ive-ness” and attention to detail were useful in her work. She also declared herself as not the ‘most
patient of people’, and I saw in her a sharp intelligence and quickness of mind
that was coupled with a low tolerance for slow or sloppy work. Snap judgements, blunt comments and accurate appraisals
all comprised a part of her ‘smart as a whip’ work mentality.

However
strong her self-confidence may have once been, it took a near fatal blow with
the birth of her son. She said, “I had
such a difficult time with him that I felt completely incompetent as a mother.” She described her child as an “awful
baby”. He was “wide awake as soon as he was
born and he was super-alert all the time”.
He couldn’t be put down, or he would “Scream his head off, and he’d keep
going and going”. Breast feeding did not
go well, and proper coaching ultimately helped sort out the nursing regime, but
unfortunately it came so late that the mother was totally disheartened. The child didn’t sleep unless held by his
mother, and as her own sleep deprivation accumulated, her health began to
decline. As she put it, 2 ½ years into
motherhood, “I was a wreck; I swear I’ve been
a wreck. In 2 ½ years I went from
feeling about 30 to feeling 60 (years old) – to being completely drained,
having no energy to do anything, no joy in life - it was just awful.”

Her
marriage suffered along with her health. Disagreements and fights came with the territory of caring for an
extremely needy youngster. Since
returning to work, she felt heartened that at least there she could “actually
do something and feel semi-competent”. And while from her boss’s perspective she’s performed well enough,
internally her feeling was “I was barely holding together.”

Now,
she’s trying to choose, “do I focus on career…, or do I have a second child…?” The decision is complicated by her depleted
state of health, her self-declared post-traumatic stress from her first child (and
anxiety about a possible repeat), and her concerns about a lack of parenting solidarity
with her husband. For her immediate day
to day life, though, the most significant change she was looking for was to
feel more patience towards her son, the child who she’d come to feel tormented
by. I prescribed Chocolate 30C about six
weeks before the appointment, which brought the “insect” remedy into focus as
her similimum. After having
Chocolate she reported: “I
was hoping to feel a lot more patient with my son, and on one hand I noticed
that, a bit… but I was feeling much more intolerant of his behavior at times,
too. When he was being a total monkey, I
just wanted to… to strangle
him. Well, not literally, but I just
felt I had no tolerance for it, it
was just like crrrrrh.”

This
woman is an expressive speaker, and when describing her frustrations with her
demanding son she made numerous and expressive hand gestures – palms up and
down like the balancing of weight scales, edge of hand slicing the air in a
cutting motion, fiercely gripped fingers as if strangling someone, and so on. She is equally animated by the powerful love
that she feels for her son, and sheer frustration.

She
spoke of having challenges disciplining her precocious and tireless child whom
she described as being “up and down – angelic and awful”. Parenting, when it comes to guidance and
discipline, is never an easy thing, and for this woman complications arose
because her discipline attempts were not supported, and were at times even
questioned by her husband, in front of her poorly behaving son. Of this she said “I think it’s completely inappropriate,
and it just makes me nuts!” As she
considers the idea of having a second child, some of her differences with her
husband weigh in heavily on the “nay” side. Their “Mr. Intensity” child has “frayed the nerves” of both
parents. While on many levels they work
well together as a couple, when stressed out, she says of her husband, “when he
irritates me, he just completely
irritates me, and I think, why the hell am I married to you? You are making me nuts!”

What
type of irritation was she experiencing? She feels irritated on all kinds of levels with her husband, but basically
she feels a lack of support from him. “But”, she said, “he’s not an axe murderer… everybody would agree he’s
a very nice guy. It’s just… it’s just
that his mannerisms just bug the hell
out of me. At times it’s fine, but when
he’s irritating me I honestly feel like, UGHHHH!” She couldn’t put a word to
her feelings; an animal-like cry expressed it best, and at this point she did a
type of whole-body gesture – squirming in her seat and moving her arms sharply
as if to shake something off. “Sometimes
I feel like, sometimes it feels like being married to N (her husband) is like
wearing a hair shirt – just so constantly irritating!”

At
other times irritation is not nearly a strong enough word to describe her
state; this happens when she finds her husband making “provocative comments”,
typically in the form of sarcasm. She says that he “likes to sort of twist the
needle... sort of being deliberately obnoxious”. And her reaction to this? She says, “It just makes me angry – my response
is to just go right in and chew him a new head!”

A
recent mishap, when her son had slipped in the tub and hit his head, brought
this feeling into sharp focus once again. Miscommunication and misunderstanding were involved, but in the heat of
the moment her anger towards her husband was very intense. Upon reflection, she said of her anger “I
don’t think I was necessarily appropriate in wanting to rip his head off at
that particular moment.”

By
this point it was clear that this woman was fully in an insect state – the praying
mantis insect state! What is she
talking about? She’s irritated. Her husband irritates her. Certain behaviors “bug” the hell out of
her. And her candid response to this
irritated and bugged feeling? Anger: she
“would have shredded him”, “go right in & chew him a new head”, “rip his
head off”. These were descriptions that
had my mind leaping to the praying mantis.

The
brute violence of her anger can be witnessed in the sexual cannibalism of this
insect, and the extreme irritation she felt, not only emotionally but
physically – like needing to squirm out of a ‘hair shirt’. This is reflected in the development of
immature mantises; they molt their skin six or seven times before
maturity. Materia medica that existed at
the time suggested that this remedy has the potential for being “unfeeling and
hard hearted”, but the extreme anger and irritability was not well
described. Itching skin was noted in the
physicals, but a strong quantity of confirmatory rubrics was not to be found in
this newish remedy. But the animal state,
her animated expression, painted such
a vivid picture of the mantis that the prescription was clear. We began with Mantis religiosa 200C, a single
dose.

Six
weeks later, I saw her again and the change she reported was dramatic. “Whatever it was you gave me was awesome; I
feel so much better. The underlying
extreme irritation I was feeling… GONE! My son is not getting on my nerves nearly as
much as he was. And my irritation with
my husband? Before it was high; now it’s
very, very low. He still bugs me from
time to time, but not nearly to the same extent. I’m feeling much more mellow and happy. It’s such
a relief!”

This
was a dramatic change, and I was interested in seeing if she could describe how
the “relief” from her previous frayed nerves/extreme irritation state came
about. Her answer is hopefully
illuminating for identifying the nature of the suffering in Mantis religiosa
cases; she said, “It was like something unraveling, like tight wires, loosening
and loosening, and then coming down. I
can’t describe it any other way, but within two weeks for sure, even within a
week, I was feeling RELIEF; it’s the
only way I can describe it, not feeling so bugged,
right?” As she said “bugged” she made
another gesture with her fantastically expressive hands – a tight gripping
gesture as if all the strength of her will was focused in her ruthlessly clenched
fingers.

She
remained with this remedy for a little under a year. It met her state, and after only two doses
she was done with it. Longer term
results were lovely. She reported that,
“I’m feeling almost mellow, which for me is unheard of!” (She laughs at herself.) Her relationships became healthier, and with
her son she said, “I’ve actually been feeling a lot of joy with him… I think
that’s what you’re supposed to feel when you have a baby and I never felt
that. He still runs me off my feet and
talks a mile a minute, but I’ve got a deep sort of contentment which I didn’t
really have before.”

She
summed it up with a laugh and said: “I’ll take more of that anytime; it was
really good – best drug I’ve ever had! Whatever you pinpointed,” and here she made another gesture, first
pointing her finger and then ticking her nose with it, “was awesome. Thank you.”

Cynthia Shepard lives
and practices on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada